


Soul-Searching

by FearNoEvil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Benny is an old-soul vampire and a very good bro, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Purgatory, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5669974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FearNoEvil/pseuds/FearNoEvil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Dean Winchester at his side, Benny has more hope of escaping Purgatory than he's had in ages.  It's not just that he's human -- it's who Dean is, something Benny understands far better than who he himself is.  Who Dean is, however, is also the greatest threat to their escape . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul-Searching

**Author's Note:**

> I am very bad at titles!
> 
> I originally posted this work two summers ago to the hoodietime h/c meme under my dead and useless LJ, sparkle_elf, under this prompt:
> 
> 'Dean takes a knife (or a bullet, or a curse, or whatever else painful thing you like) for someone else (Sam, Bobby, Kevin, Jodie, whoever really, I'm not picky!). The person takes care of him and wonders at Dean's natural inclination to protect others, even at the expense of himself.  
> Any season. Vague prompt is vague. :p'
> 
> Only minor edits made since then!  
> Hope you enjoy!!

Benny Lafitte could barely remember the kind of man he was, back before it all, when he was human. He remembered he was quiet, rather unsociable, always standing at the edges of crowds. He remembered speaking low and warm to those few who engaged him, and smiling distantly even at those who gazed at him in suspicion. Most of all, he remembered being alone with thoughts and affections, sometimes lonely, but mostly content with his lot. But then came the nest, and the tour of the Americas, and Andrea, and then their death, and Purgatory, and whatever traces of that man Andrea had reawakened had long-since been lost, or at least buried too deep, under an eternity of running and fighting.

  
But this life (this death?) was no time or place for soul-searching. The man he was now was a mystery he could re-address once _–if_ – he and Dean Winchester ever managed to get out of this place. And with the kind of man Dean was, Benny was almost scared by how hopeful he was. Yes, he’d pegged what kind of man _Dean_ was within hours of meeting him. It was a one-in-ten-million, a Hail-Mary to the highest skies, that there was a human here at all, and that there was one like Dean – well, Benny still wasn’t so jaded that he’d ruled out divine intervention. Perhaps God wanted Benny to get out, and sent Dean there to retrieve him, had willed that they escape together.

  
That was, however, only if the man didn’t get himself killed first.

  
It had been just another day of clawing and slashing toward the errant angel – whoever, wherever he was, if he was Dean’s _only_ proviso, then Benny was still counting his blessings – when a rogue blade, thrusting swift and true toward Benny’s neck, instead got lodged deep in the left hemisphere of Dean’s chest. The man had literally jumped into its path to shield him.

  
As Dean’s body crumpled earthward, Benny whirled toward their now-weaponless assailant – an irate vampire who, judging from his clothes, had come to this realm relatively recently – and dispatched him without further ado. He then turned to face his fallen comrade, fearing the worst, that the weight of his hope had betrayed him again.

  
Dean was groaning, gasping, and thrashing, but not quite screaming as Benny knelt shakily beside him. He put one hand uncertainly on Dean’s chest, positioned the other hand on the hilt of the blade sticking out of it.

  
“Lie still, brother,” he said gently.

  
Dean did his best to obey, looking desperately up at him, though his eyes were crazed by pain and distress. “On three,” said Benny, and when Dean nodded, they locked eyes and counted together before Benny pulled, hard, and the blade came sliding roughly out, eliciting an earsplitting scream and a spurt of blood.

  
As Dean moaned something that sounded like, “S’mmyn’vrwaitsfrthree,” Benny stood quickly as the scent of Dean’s blood assailed him. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t smelled Dean’s blood before, seen it pour from him on a daily basis – but never this much, this close, this profusely. For a moment the memory of his bloodlust threatened to overwhelm him. Where Andrea’s blood had smelled strong and sweet as a glass of spiced rum, Dean’s smelled of salt and iron, and something intensely bittersweet. He wondered idly if every hunter’s blood smelled like that, as some sort of last defense against ghosts, and once again, what about a person decided the scent of their blood. (He’d had theories about it, which the rest of his nest used to laugh about, saying Benny thought too much.) To drink Dean’s blood would be like a hearty meal, not a sweet dessert. While he knelt beside their fallen assailant and tore absently at his shirt, he breathed deeply and tried to remind himself that he was a disembodied soul,  that _physically_ he needed no blood to survive, and if he sucked Dean dry he would remain so for eternity.

  
His will steeled, he turned back to Dean, whose breathing was now sharp and controlled, to keep from making any other noise. His hand was pressed hard to his wound, but blood continued to seep out between his fingers. Gingerly Benny tried to remove the hand, clamped stubbornly in place, even as he wondered what good the miserable scrap of shirt torn off the dead vampire would really do. But Dean almost whimpered in pain when it was touched, and Benny knew this wasn’t going to work unless they were working together.

  
“Dean?” he said.

  
Dean grunted to indicate he heard him.

  
“Move your hand, would ya? I’m just gonna bind this.”

  
Dean nodded, took a shaky breath, pulled his hand away. Benny pressed the cloth down hard, watched the blood soak through it almost right away. He ignored it, wrapped the cloth around Dean’s whole arm, tied it as tight as he dared, and then backed up. He hadn’t had to deal with serious _human_ wounds in so long. If they were back topside, Dean would probably stitch it up at least, pour alcohol on it, and maybe take something to dull the pain. Down here, there was just this. Just _him._ Just waiting, and seeing if it would heal on its own. Just hoping and praying it hadn’t hit anything vital, that it didn’t bleed out, that this vampire he was with could be trusted to resist a delicious, gaping open wound.

  
And suddenly Benny was flooding with shame, because the man had just _thrown himself in front of a knife_ for him, and he still needed his own self-interest to convince himself not to suck him dry. Well, _that_ ended, right now. He may not be too sure what kind of man he was, but if he was to be any good up there, he wasn’t going to be _that_ mercenary bastard. This was not – could no longer be—solely about getting out; this was also about helping a friend.

  
Benny scanned the trees. All clear, all quiet, for the moment. Steeling himself again, he pulled Dean up by the lapels of his jacket, put an arm around his back, and dragged him toward the sheltering bows of a nearby tree. He’d build a fire, then, and he’d – he’d do whatever Dean needed, and hell or high water, he would _keep his friend alive_.

  
Dean seemed vacant, delirious as Benny laid him gently down. His eyes were a little glazed now, and Benny’s heart skipped in the panic that they would not re-focus. He gave Dean’s face a little tap and, thank God almighty, he snapped instantly to attention with a pained little, “Uh?” It would now be his job to keep him talking.

  
“Boy, that fella seemed like he knew you personal, Dean,” Benny told him conversationally, flicking his eyes back toward their fallen assailant. “You know why that’d be?”

  
“Yeah, I – I beheaded _him_ with a buzz saw, if memory serves,” Dean replied, his voice low and raspy, but coherent. “The rest of his nest, though, Sammy stopped me. I was little crazy then, but Sammy found out they were just suckin’ cows an’ stuff . . .”

  
Ah, the mysterious _Sammy_ again. Whenever Dean was talking a lot, the name would invariably crop up. Benny’s theory was that he was Dean’s son, but he couldn’t remember how and exactly when he’d first formulated that idea.

  
“Sammy . . . Sammy’s gonna be goin’ crazy up there . . .” Dean continued, his voice quavering a little. “I gotta . . . I gotta get back to him . . .”

  
“You will, brother. You will; I promise you that,” Benny told him firmly, trying to smile reassuringly. Dean’s babbling was flooding him with dread – pained, incoherent, sentimental babbling was the territory of dying and desperate men, as Benny, God help him, would know.

  
Suddenly Dean’s head jerked forward and he was hacking blood, hard and harsh and painful, and it was flowing back down his throat, choking him. Benny hastily seized his shoulders again and turned him on his side, pouring the small river of blood from his mouth, and patting his back anxiously as he struggled to breathe.

  
“Come on now, Dean, you’re no good to me dead,” Benny begged as Dean continued to retch blood into the dirt instead of inhaling. “No – no good to Sammy or the angel, either.”

  
At last Dean spat out the last the blood and took a deep, desperate, rattling breath. After some time of Dean just breathing as deeply as he could, and Benny gripping his arm firmly, Dean grated out, “I know.”

  
“Well then, word of advice on stayin’ alive, Dean?” Benny said as he dragged Dean back, propped him up against the tree. “Don’t jump in front of blades.”

  
Dean gave a gravelly laugh and conceded, “Guess I wasn’t thinkin’.” And that right there - that very instinct - _that_ was what gave Benny such hope of escape and such fear for Dean’s life in equal measure. Because _that_ was the sort of man Dean was: a protector, first and foremost. It hadn't _been_ a thought, a decision - it was an _identity._ To there were only enemies and people to throw yourself in front of: people to find, people to save, people to get back to. And if Dean _didn’t_ have those people - that lost angel and that Sammy kid, whoever he was, and even Benny himself, the semi-reformed vampire – well, Benny was beginning to seriously doubt he’d find the strength or even will to escape. Without whatever it was in Dean that made him jump and shield, they never would get out.

  
“You surely weren’t,” Benny chuckled back, settling down beside Dean against the wide tree-trunk, contented that Dean’s breaths were steadying and the wound no longer bleeding. The wound - the physical proof of the greatest asset and the greatest threat to their escape. And the greatest threat and greatest asset to Dean himself. Looking away from him, troubled, Benny shook his head and murmured solemnly, “It’s gonna get you killed, Dean.”

  
With a breathy laugh, Dean replied, “Oh, it already has.”


End file.
